Cold Discomfort

My week so far's been dominated by a rather vicious virus (of the wetware kind), which has prevented me doing any writing, or indeed coming into work as I should have done yesterday. While the symptoms mimic those of a cold with uncanny accuracy in order to make me look a wimp, this virus is actually much, much worse -- having managed to take out my ability to sleep, to walk around without feeling like I've got a rhino on my back, or to think logically (or indeed, at times, sequentially).

It's actually not as bad today as it was on Monday and Tuesday, which is why I'm in work, but I'm seriously wondering whether I actually ought to be. My employers seem troubled by no such scruples, though. Never mind.

At least I've had some time to embark, following your advice, on House of Leaves. I'm 100 pages in and so far it's satisfyingly creepy -- about a third of the time. Other parts of it are either overly pretentious or unduly annoying or both... although I admit I may be crankier than usual. On the other hand, I also started Newton's Wake today, and am enjoying the chapter and a half I've read so far. It hasn't got political yet, mind you.

I've realised that yesterday's marathon Nathan Barley review was the first time I've written anything much about books, TV or film for quite a while now. I must rectify that.

One thing I will not be reviewing, however, until after 7pm on Saturday 26 March at the very earliest, is the first episode of new Doctor Who -- which, as widely reported, has been scurrilously uploaded onto the internet by an unscrupulous employee of a Canadian broadcaster. It's naturally being watched by every single Doctor Who fan equipped with sufficient computer literacy and insufficient patience -- which, as you might imagine, is an awful lot of them.

Reviews are springing up all over the web, making it increasingly difficult for those of us who wish to preserve intact our thrill of anticipation (or our legal inviolability) to avoid the buggers -- a fact which I find deeply annoying. Although as I've said, I may be rather cranky at the moment.